YouTube Video of Child-Snatching Eagle is a Hoax

Students take credit for fake video of a child-snatching Golden Eagle

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Students came forward to take credit for a viral video on YouTube of an eagle snatching up a child. The eagle's wing becomes transparent three seconds in to the video.

Updated at 4:55 PM EDT on Wednesday, Dec 19, 2012

A video on YouTube of a Golden Eagle snatching up a toddler turned out to be fake. Students from Montreal's 3-D technology school Centre NAD came forward to take credit for the viral video that appears to show an eagle snatching a toddler in a park.

The video shows a scene where a flying eagle swoops down, picks up a toddler with its talons and travels several feet before dropping the child and flying away.

Students Normand Archambault, Loïc Mireault and Félix Marquis-Poulin made the video in a production simulation workshop class, according to a statement from the school. The eagle and the toddler were created in 3D animation and added to the film, the school said.

The video was uploaded on Tuesday night and has received over 2 million views by late Wednesday.

Warning: Video contains graphic language

David Bird, a professor of wildlife biology at McGill University told the CBC that he doubted the authenticity of the video and said that he has never heard of an eagle snatching up a child.

"The public has nothing to fear from bald eagles in that regard of picking up their babies, and for that matter, even their pets," he said.

Alex Hern of the New Statesman was also skeptical from the beginning. He analyzed the video frame by frame and noticed that the right wing of the eagle becomes transparent three seconds into the video.

"'This video is unbelievable' was clearly my subconscious being more right than I thought, because I actually don't believe this video is true," Hern said.